Stephen H Ruppenthal

[KALKI]

Stephen H Ruppenthal ( ? ) Son of a TWA pilot, he could travel across the world but India hooked him during his first visit. Later he would come to know the spiritual master Eknath Easwaran and work with him for about three decades. The author of the recently published The Path of Direct Awakening: Passages for Meditation was barely 14 when he fell in love with India.

" I have a special, soft corner in my heart for Hinduism. It is like a mother to me, and I have always felt so,"

A journalist said not too long ago that my insights into India may have been due to karma. Over the past month, I have thought a lot about that. Maybe I did have some of India in me even before I landed there at age 14. Mine is the India of the spirit. Before that, I was not religious in the least. But I came away from India wanting passionately to find the deepest truth in religion; not hear it from a church pulpit, but experience it in my consciousness.

Any great treasure takes some work to find and gain. When something is easily accessible, often it isn't worth that much, or perhaps the hard work comes later down the road. To me, Indian spirituality is a treasure of the highest order.

India stands for hope in a world full of violence and despair. The fertile spiritual soil of India will bring forth a spiritual figure who will guide the world back into love, into peace, into mutual respect and caring for each other. That is how we will save this planet.

I am more a devotee than a jnani. Though I love the wisdom of the Upanishads and such high philosophy and logic as the Nyaya-Vaishesheka and Nagarjuna, I feel most drawn to the life and example of Sri Krishna. Right now, religion is still concepts up in my head. I want to have religion flooding my heart.

Sri Krishna offers this in the Bhagvad Gita. That is why I have memorised all of chapters 2 through 12, plus 15 and parts of 18, for use in my passage meditation. When I meditate on these passages, I try to repeat these words in my heart, where I believe Sri Krishna resides in all his glory. In this regard, I have also memorized all passages with the yin-yang symbol in my book that brings the same peace and energy directly from nature and the magical world around us.

" I am captivated also by epics like the Mahabharata and the Ramayana,"

(source: Mine is the India of the Spirit - interview with Stephen H Ruppenthal - rediff.com).